


Flower Girl

by justabi



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Allergies, Challenge Response, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pining, Rare Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-24
Updated: 2005-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:52:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justabi/pseuds/justabi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re telling me that with an ancient device capable of powering a stable shield constantly for the past ten thousand years right in front of his face, all it’s data right there for him to play with, and a ZPM hiding somewhere on the planet, Rodney was <i>picking flowers</i> for his <i>girlfriend</i>?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flower Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Written for svmadelyn's [Smallville and Stargate: Atlantis Flash Fiction Challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/users/svmadelyn/289473.html) for seperis. Prompt? Was largely ignored. What? You expect me to play well with others? Pfft. If you _want_ to see it, it's listed at the end.
> 
> **Thank you** so much Fashes, icalynn, kitkat3979, lemonbella, mecurtin, and roxymissrose who all provided services ranging from handholding to full on betaing when I begged. You guys? Rock my world, much like Clark Kent in a $2000 midlength coat looking at Lex like he wants to throw him down on the parquet wood floor and... wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right, the rocking that you all do. Yes. Thank you so much. You all went above and beyond the call of duty.

For ten minutes Rodney stood outside Katie Brown’s quarters. He raised a slightly trembling, sweaty hand, hesitated and then knocked. Almost immediately he turned to leave, but the whoosh of the door sliding open behind him startled a jump and a manly squeak out of him. His back was still to her when she said, “Rodney?” in a mousy voice.

“Uh, yes,” Rodney stuttered as he turned around, groping for something to say. “Katie. I, uh, I didn’t think you were in. I wanted to see you because I had a question. About plants.”

“Oh.” Her clear green eyes flickered down toward the floor.

“That is to say… I wanted to see you. Just… very much wanted to see you.”

“Oh.” Katie beamed at him, her whole posture reorganizing itself. She was even prettier than he had remembered. Rodney swallowed hard and rubbed his hands against the fabric of his pants to wipe away the sweat still beading on his palms.

“And now I’ve seen you and I’ll just be going now. Sorry to bother you.”

“Please, don’t go.” She took two quick steps from the threshold and put her tiny, pale hands on his forearm. “After our date, you said you were interested in me, but you never came back. I know that you are a very important man, and your work is very stressful, but it’s been so long. I thought…” Katie faltered for a moment, let go of him and stepped back toward her quarters. “I thought you didn’t want to see me again.”

“No, no, I just…” Rodney stumbled a little in his haste to get to her, flung his arms out to get his balance and covered it by grabbing her and pulling her in close. Her hair tickled his nose and a few strands stuck to his lips when they brushed her head. Katie’s eyelashes were wet when she looked up at him. Instead of talking, which could only get him into trouble, Rodney kissed her. Her eyes slid closed and she melted into his chest.

* * *

Loud, nasal snores echoed off the ancient walls until Rodney twitched awake on his back, mouth wide open with a trail of drool glistening down the right side of his face. He blinked blearily and scrubbed his face with his hands. As he took in the red light filtering in to the unfamiliar room through the curtain behind the bed, and the rather feminine canopy over the bed, Rodney jolted awake. The slippery sheets on his naked body did not belong on his prescription mattress, which this clearly was not, and fitting another person on the tiny bed would violate the laws of physics. The only thing familiar about anything was waking up alone.

“Pants, pants, for the love of god where are my pants?” He snapped his fingers at a vague memory and turned to find them hanging _just_ out of reach on the back of a chair, clutched the sheets tight around him and leaned as far as he could to grab them. They slipped through his fingers, but knocked over the chair, taking the bedside table and the plant perched on the edge with it. “No, nononono!”

As he bent over to scoop the dirt back into the cracked pot, he got tangled in the diaphanous, white mosquito netting and jerked his arm free. The entire canopy came crashing down on him from the ceiling, and in his attempt to get away Rodney tripped over the sheet and tumbled to the floor with a loud crash.

“Rodney!” Katie scurried into the room, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel with her hair up in a plastic shower cap. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” In a vain attempt to wave her off, Rodney flailed his arms, only serving to further entangle him in the bedding.

“Here, let me help you.” Katie’s well-meaning attempt to help Rodney ended with the two of them collapsed together in a heap on the floor. She was wet and naked under him, her towel lost in the pile. She brushed her fingers through the hair at his temple and smiled. He rose up into her touch, leaning his face into her neck as she leaned down to kiss him, but the slick sheet under his hand slipped and his face rammed into hers.

“Sorry! I’m sorry.” Rather than attempt to kiss her again, Rodney scrambled to stand up, shucked the bedding wrapped around him and plucked his clothes from the mess. Katie’s watery eyes followed him as he dressed with all the grace of Buster Keaton. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Major, I mean, _Colonel_ Sheppard and Elizabeth are already mad at me and I have to be at a mission briefing at 0900 which was ten minutes ago and I haven’t eaten anything and who knows what that hulking beast Sheppard added to our team will do if I fall behind and to top it off I’ll probably go into hypoglycemic shock if I get shot before breakfast. But, um, thank you for, _you know_ and I’ll just be going now.”

Katie covered herself back up with her towel and watched him run out the door.

* * *

“Nice of you to join us, Rodney.” John’s normally loose posture tightened when Rodney rushed into the Gate Room, still rumpled and flustered and breathing rather a lot harder than normal from running all the way from Katie’s room at the complete other end of Atlantis.

“I had a…” Rodney flapped his arms and then deflated before adding, “thing,” weakly.

“Oh, joy.” John’s eyebrow lifted. “Another one of your _things_. Do we need to stay here to avert certain disaster or can we head out?”

“Ha ha.” Rodney didn’t bother to look up, still attempting to fasten his vest as the event horizon formed. “Where are we going, again?”

“You might know that if you were on time for the briefing,” John pointed out as he walked with Rodney up to the gate.

“Yes, yes, just tell me if there are going to be hostile natives or creepy insects or Wraith or…” Rodney stopped walking abruptly, and John _almost_ kept going, but managed not to knock Rodney over, for which he was pathetically grateful. “On second thought, don’t tell me. The way my day is going so far, horrifying death can only be an improvement.”

“Jeez, Rodney, who’d you piss off now?”

“No one. Botanist. I knocked over a plant this morning and now I think I’m getting a rash. Do you think Carson has a cream for that? Maybe I should go to the infirmary.”

“I’m sure Beckett will be thrilled to look at your rash. When we get back. Now, move.”

“Fine, but you’ll feel really bad when I go into anaphylactic shock and die.”

“I think I’ll be able to live with myself.”

For the first time since entering the Gate room, Rodney looked around and noticed that Teyla and Ronon were absent. Instead, he saw two Marines from the original expedition whom he vaguely recalled discarding as subjects in the original tests of the chair in Antarctica due to their gross incompetence at controlling ancient devices once they initiated them. They both made Carson look like a grand master. Neither one had enough control to even get a Puddle Jumper out of the hanger bay.

“Why are we taking Frick and Frack over here instead of _our_ team?”

The marines scowled, but remained silent while they gripped their P90s, waiting for John’s signal.

“According to the ancient database, only people with the gene can cross the shield on the Stargate on P3X-141. Teyla and Ronon don’t have the gene and we wouldn’t want them to get all crispy on the other side.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Rodney pressed his hand into John’s chest to keep him from crossing into the wormhole. “P3X-141? Isn’t that the planet on Elizabeth’s list that ate all _three_ MALPs we sent?”

“Yep, that’s the one.” John smiled lazily at Rodney. If he was hoping to put Rodney at ease he was failing miserably.

Rodney yanked on John’s vest to keep him from going through, hysteria rising in his voice. “Are you insane?! You can’t seriously want to go in _blind_ through a shield that disintegrated everything we sent through!”

“Not everything.” John shook his head and made a chiding sound. “If you’d been here for the _briefing_ you’d know that we sent one of Beckett’s gene-therapy mice and it was just fine.”

“A mouse?!” Rodney squeaked and turned resolutely from the gate. “Nonononono. You expect me to risk my life based on a mouse? How do we even know the mouse made it?”

“One of your guys strapped it with a tiny little camera and a transmitter.” John grabbed Rodney’s shoulders and turned him back toward the gate. “It’ll be fine. Think about the ZPM.”

“My guys are idiots and every time I go out with _your_ guys I end up strung upside down from a tree or scooped up in a dart.” Rodney looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack, despite John’s efforts to calm him. It wasn’t like he didn’t _want_ to take Teyla and Ronon with them, but they couldn’t get through the gate. What was he supposed to do, let them get disintegrated? John whapped McKay lightly on the butt to get him moving.

“Parker and Jameson can take care of themselves.” John nodded his head in their direction and they began to march toward the gate, sweeping John and Rodney along with their progress.

“I’m sure they can, Colonel, I just want to make sure they can take care of _me_.”

Sheppard rolled his eyes and shoved Rodney through the gate. “They’re Marines, Rodney.”

“I can’t tell you how comforting that is,” Rodney said as they stepped through the other side, voice dripping with sarcasm.

* * *

“Unscheduled off world activation. Receiving Lieutenant Jameson’s IDC. Colonel Sheppard’s team is not due to check in for another four hours.”

“Drop the shield,” Elizabeth commanded. A cacophony of metallic clinks echoed off the walls as the Marines in the Gate Room snapped into defensive formation around the Stargate.

“Tell Beckett to get his ass down there,” John’s voice broke over the radio. “_Now_. We have a medical emergency.”

Elizabeth touched her headset after a nod from one of the communications officers. “We’ve alerted Dr. Beckett and he is en route. What’s going on, Colonel?”

“It’s McKay. He got stung by some weird looking alien bees and his throat swelled up. He stabbed himself with his EpiPen, and he’s breathing now, but he doesn’t look so good. We collected one of the bees in case you need it.”

Two Marines dragged Rodney’s pale, sweaty, and shivering body through the Gate, feet dragging across the floor, with the adrenaline injector still dangling from the fabric at his thigh where he had punched it through his pants. He held a fistful of flowers in one hand so tightly his swollen knuckles were white. His face was gray except for an angry looking, red lump, and another on his neck. Elizabeth ran down the stairs to them.

“Rodney!” She reached out a hand to touch him, but he flinched hard when she touched his arm, so she pulled back.

“Come on, McKay. Stay with me.” John stood in front Rodney shaking him gently by the front of his vest. “I leave you alone for ten minutes and you decide to stop and smell the roses?”

Rodney promptly threw up on his shoes.

“You have got to be kidding me.” John let go of the vest and Rodney sagged further into the two Marines. “Bates, get a clean up crew in here. Beckett, this is Sheppard, where the hell are you?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Colonel. I’m here,” Carson huffed as he rushed into the room with a team of medics. Less than two minutes later, Rodney was strapped into a gurney and on his way to the infirmary.

“-Eezze…” Rodney’s voice broke. “Carson. Flowers. Katie.” Rodney gasped in a wet, raspy breath, shuddered slightly then began shaking violently against the restraints and the trauma team swept him away in a flurry of activity. John moved to follow them, but Elizabeth grabbed his arm and held him back.

“What happened?” The words came out more shrilly than she had meant them to.

“I don’t know.” John brushed his hand through his hair and shook his head. “There were flowers everywhere and he started sneezing and bitching about pollen the second we came through the gate, but then he got all excited about some energy readings coming from these big rocks in a circle around the gate. There were no life signs and it wasn’t like he could get lost ten feet from the gate so we figured he’d be fine while we scouted the place out a little bit. Our radios were on an open channel the whole time.”

Elizabeth nodded and let go of his arm.

“All of a sudden McKay starts screaming about bees so we double-timed it back to the gate. When we got back to him he was on the ground making this horrible choking sound and stabbing himself in the leg with his EpiPen. By the time Jameson finished dialing home he was breathing again, but he scared the crap out of me for a minute there.”

“Dr. Beckett will fix him up. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, sure. He’ll be fine.” John’s jaw hardened, his eyes locked on the corridor to the infirmary. “He’ll be fine.”

* * *

“The logs on Rodney’s tablet indicate that about twenty minutes before you activated the Stargate he received high density data burst from one of the monoliths. It looks like Rodney was able to access several gigabytes before he…” Zelenka fidgeted with pad in his hands, shifted his weight from one foot to the other in front of the conference table and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, “before you returned, but that would not have given him enough time to go through all the data. Did he indicate what he was working on when he called you?”

“Well, sure, you know McKay.” John shrugged. “He was spouting off at the mouth a mile a minute, but I couldn’t really tell you what he was talking about. Other than bees. There was definitely some shrieking about bees. And flowers. There were flowers everywhere on the planet, so it was only a matter of time before we ran into the bees. He sounded pretty desperate to get away from the planet before we ran into them.”

“Yes, Rodney is very allergic to bees. He would of course be concerned about his safety on such a world. But you knew this about him, also. And yet still you left him, still he is in the infirmary.” The little man practically vibrated as he clipped out the accusation.

“He’s going to be okay, Radek.” Elizabeth touched Zelenka’s hand lightly to calm him.

“McKay’s too stubborn to let a little bee take him out for long.” John’s smile faltered. “Besides, he wouldn’t let himself die before he had the chance to chew me out for leaving him alone on a planet full of bees.”

“I will need to speak with him.” Zelenka locked eyes with Dr. Weir defiantly.

Elizabeth nodded. “I’ll have Dr. Beckett notify you as soon as Dr. McKay regains consciousness.” They paused long enough to come to an unspoken understanding during which neither moved. “In the mean time, you and your team should be working on analyzing the data Dr. McKay collected from the planet.”

“Yes, yes of course.” Zelenka waved dismissively, just the way Rodney normally did. “Rodney will not be happy if he wakes to find that we have made no progress.” That got a halfhearted chuckle from the other scientists sitting around the table and an indulgent smile from Dr. Weir.

“Okay, let’s get to work, then.” Elizabeth nodded once to dismiss the meeting, and then looked back down at her notes. John hung back while assorted scientists he didn’t recognize got up and filed out of the conference room.

“Can he hold it together until McKay is back on his feet?” John asked as soon as he and Elizabeth were alone.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Dr. Zelenka has managed the science division during Rodney’s absence quite efficiently in the past. He was in charge for more than two months while we were back on Earth.”

“Yeah, but he seemed kinda shaken up. He was twitchier than McKay on caffeine withdrawal.”

“If you are concerned perhaps you could look in on him, assist him in making a stable transition.”

“Me?” John flashed her his best you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me look. “Zelenka blames me for this whole mess in the first place. The whole science brigade spent the meeting giving me death glares. They scare me. I’ve _seen_ them making nuclear weapons, who knows what they’ll do to me if I invade their turf without McKay. As it is, I probably won’t have hot water for a week.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “I suspect that it would mean a lot to him, and Rodney for that matter, for you not to abandon the science team any more than they already perceive you have.”

“I don’t know anything about organizing a bunch of scientists, Elizabeth.”

“I have faith that you’ll muddle through some how.”

* * *

“Beckett, who is that girl sitting on top of McKay?” John’s body was tight as he walked into the infirmary.

“Who, Dr. Brown?” Beckett didn’t even bother to look up from his work. “She’s Rodney’s lady friend, of course.”

“Rodney has a girlfriend?” John asked incredulously.

“Aye, that he does.” Carson looked over at the bed and smiled. “They make a lovely couple, don’t you think?”

“When did he have time to get a girlfriend? No, wait, better question, _how_ did he get a girlfriend?”

Carson chuckled. “I think Lieutenant Cadman helped them along a wee bit while she and Rodney were... well, you remember. She and Katie are quite good friends.”

“Ah.” John nodded. “It figures he’d need to be possessed to be able to get a woman. I’ve never seen anyone so completely hopeless in my entire life.”

“I don’t see it myself, but Laura assures me that Katie is quite smitten with him. She’s been here since we got him stabilized, fretting her pretty little head over him. Poor dear,” Beckett tutted and shook his head. “I think she feels responsible for what happened. Rodney was picking flowers for her when he was stung.”

“He was what?!” John growled and clenched his fists.

“I know. Seems a bit out of character to me, as well, but it seems he took Lieutenant Cadman’s advice to heart. She told him to bring Katie flowers the last time we were off world together. Dr. Brown’s a botanist, you know. Last thing he did before he slipped into the coma was beg me to give them to her.”

John’s eyes flared. He spoke slowly so as not to give in to his rising hysteria. “You’re telling me that with an ancient device capable of powering a stable shield constantly for the past ten thousand years right in front of his face, all it’s data right there for him to play with, and a ZPM hiding somewhere on the planet, Rodney was _picking flowers_ for his _girlfriend_?”

“Aye, it seems that way.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“You may have to get in line. Dr. Zelenka popped by earlier. I don’t speak a word of Czech, but I got the distinct impression that Radek wanted a few words with him when he wakes up.”

“He is going to wake up, isn’t he, Doc?”

“Your guess is as good as mine at this point, Colonel. The anaphylactic reaction is under control and yet he hasn’t woken up. If he doesn’t regain consciousness soon…” Carson sighed and put his work down. “Well, perhaps we’ll know more when the analysis of the insect you brought back is complete. Until then, all we can do is wait.”

* * *

Radek sat up close to the bed in the dark infirmary, only the flickering of lights on the machines attached to Rodney to illuminate the cold space. One of Dr. Brown’s friends had taken her back to her room, and for that Radek was grateful. He’d been lingering at the door for some time, too uncomfortable to come any closer while she sat there as if Rodney belonged only to her.

“You are an arrogant bastard. You never listen when you _know_ you are right, and of course you cannot possibly be wrong. You are an inconsiderate, ungrateful, insufferable, oblivious fool. You are supposed to be my friend.” Radek leaned his head down and pressed his forehead into the sheets at Rodney’s hip. “You are not here and I need you to come back to me.”

For a long while he sat like that listening to the deafening whoosh of the ventilator and the ever present hum of Atlantis around them. Radek was startled by the blood pressure cuff turning itself on and beeping. He turned his head to look up at the various numbers scrolling on the display of the monitor. “9661. Prime. Your turn, Rodney. 13,231.” Radek paused for a second and answered for his friend. “Not Prime.” They played all night.

* * *

“We need one of the science team to go back to P3X-141.” Elizabeth took in Zelenka’s startled expression - man had clearly not been paying attention to the meeting thus far. Once she was sure she had his attention, she continued. “Dr. Beckett thinks it’s possible that Rodney’s reaction may have had something to do with the shield on the gate interacting with the gene therapy, so to be on the safe side it needs to be someone with the natural gene.”

“Can you not send Dr. Beckett? The science staff are…” Radek looked down to avoid her eyes and mumbled, “busy.”

“Dr. Beckett doesn’t know anything about the ancient tech running the shield or how it might interact with the gene. Doesn’t Dr. Kusanagi have the gene? She’s a little skittish, but she should be fine.” John’s suggestion made Radek flinch. It was clear to Elizabeth that there were some trust issues that needed to be worked out in the wake of the incident. “I promise to return her in one piece.”

“Miko is… unavailable.” Zelenka just stared at John rather unhelpfully until Elizabeth shot him a stern look. He sighed and gave in. “If you insist on taking someone, it must be Kavanagh.”

“That’ll be fine, just have him ready to go at 0900.” John leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He looked more resigned than she had ever seen him.

“Dr. Zelenka, can you tell us what your team has learned from the data Dr. McKay collected?”

“We have discovered how the shield is powered. It is ingenious.” Zelenka perked up for the first time all day. “The gate is located on the magnetic pole of the planet. The Naquadah in the gate and the shield generator resonate inversely with the pull which the circle of stones surrounding the gate amplifies much like a particle accelerator. Unfortunately, this method of power generation makes it nearly impossible to store in any kind of capacitor making it difficult to regulate the flow. The gate uses the fluctuations to continuously radiate the shield.”

“Could we use this method to power a shield at the alpha site?” She tilted her head hopefully.

“No.” Zelenka shook his head and deflated. “It is built around the unique EM field of the planet and cannot be replicated without creating nearly identical conditions. We might be able to do it if we could move a Stargate, but with our current resources… And even then, the power would not be as constant. The magnetic field of most planets shifts over time, but the pole on P3X-141 has not changed in ten thousand years. Not even on Earth could we do this.”

“Alright, that will be all then.”

* * *

When John slipped into the infirmary that night, he found that someone had beaten him there. Dr. Zelenka sat in the chair Katie Brown had occupied on John’s last visit, head awkwardly lying on the bed next to Rodney, their fingers carefully entwined despite the IV and the pulse monitor and other medical crap attached to Rodney’s hand. Soft murmurs in a language John assumed to be Czech reached him, but even had it been in English, it would have been too low for him to understand. John stood there listening to the cadence of the other man’s voice and the whir and beep of the machines for a long minute, then walked back toward the door.

“Do not leave on my account.” Dr. Zelenka’s voice stopped him in the doorway. “I will go if you wish.”

“No,” John said as he turned back toward the bed. Though Dr. Zelenka no longer touched Rodney, he still occupied the chair pushed flush against the side, tellingly close. “Stay. I was just going to play solitaire anyway.” John flashed the pack of cards in his hand. “I figure this may be my only chance to actually finish a game without McKay butting in.”

“Ah. You are most likely correct. Would you like…” Zelenka stood and waved at the chair.

“Nah,” John drawled. He grabbed a chair from the other side of the room and dragged it over to the bed. After shuffling the cards he dealt two hands, using the edge of the bed as a table. They played in companionable silence for several rounds before either spoke again. “So, I just talked to Beckett and he says it wasn’t the shield if the readings Kavanaugh brought back are right, but the xenobiologists are working on an anti-venom for the freaky alien bees that he thinks will do the trick.”

“Good, this is good.” Zelenka slumped back into his chair and rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

“Radek? Can I ask you a question?”

“Obviously you can.” Zelenka shifted in his seat and spread his cards across the bed. “Gin.”

John scooped up the cards to shuffle again. “Why are you here?”

“By this you mean why I am at bedside of injured friend?” Zelenka tapped the deck a cut the cards before handing them back to John to deal.

“Yeah, I mean, you two are always arguing.”

“As are you, and yet here you are as well. He is irritating man, but...” He shrugged and collected his cards.

“Are you…” John stopped arranging the cards in his hand and looked up at the other man. “Are you in love with him?”

“You are a brave man. Not as stupid as Rodney thinks,” Zelenka said and sorted his cards silently. For a while it seemed like that was going to be his whole answer, but then he tilted his head a little and looked crookedly at John and started talking again. “You are a hero, yes? Always fighting, shooting things, putting yourself in danger to protect us. This is your job, to save us.”

“I don’t always do such a great job, obviously.” John’s eyes darted to Rodney and the bed. “But I try.”

“Yes, yes, you are very brave but we all fail from time to time, even Rodney knows this, but this is not the point.” He selected a card from the draw pile and discarded an ace. “You are here to make us safe. You are here to be the hero and save the day and we all appreciate this. We are less afraid.”

“Good to know.” John picked up the ace and discarded a three, which Zelenka snatched up.

“But this is not Rodney’s job, to shoot things and go to planets with Wraith and terrifying people to tie him up and threaten him. He is not military. He is a scientist, like us. You think he is a coward because he is afraid, he whines and screams like little girl and runs away. But to us,” he paused, “to us he is hero, too, because he is afraid. He is afraid as we all are. Among us there are those who are too oblivious to notice danger and are not afraid, and those of us who see and are terrified.”

John sat back in his chair and just let Zelenka talk while they continued to play.

“Rodney is afraid like us, he is terrified of everything and cannot hide it as you do, but still, still he puts on ridiculous vest and carries ridiculous gun that cannot make him safe and he goes with you to save the day. And always, always he comes back and still is Rodney, still is afraid, still goes with you again.” Radek rubbed his neck tiredly. “So you see, to us he is so very brave. Despite his ego and his arrogance and his bluster, underneath he is a very scared little boy, and if even he can be so very scared and yet so very brave, perhaps we can as well.”

It wasn’t the answer to John’s question, but it sounded a lot like yes. They both just sat there silently for a moment until something shook Zelenka out of his reverie.

“For this we love him just a little, even when we hate him. And we do; he is infuriating man. Is much easier to love him while he lies quiet in hospital.”

John chuckled at that, and then remembered Elizabeth’s suggestion. “How are things down in the labs?”

“I can run labs, no problem. Despite what Rodney says, we are not idiots, we can muddle through without him. We were fine while he went back to Earth and we had new ZPM and shields and safety. Gin.” Zelenka dropped his cards down to the bed and his fingers brushed Rodney’s, eyes focused on the tubes and wires everywhere.

“But now people are scared. It seemed…” Zelenka pulled his hand away like it pained him and looked at John. His eyes were huge behind his glasses. “It seemed to us that Rodney was invulnerable. For all his whining he always came back and always to us he seemed as if none of it could really touch him. And now here he lies, and soon, if this new anti-venom fails to save him he will be dead and gone and who will take his place? None of us wishes to play hero.” John didn’t deal another hand.

“Is it bad?”

“Miko is crying every day, Kavanagh yells that Rodney should be quarantined or we will all die, Birgit forgets decimals and will kill us all. Simpson hacked the mission reports and reads them aloud like ghost stories. Everyone is scared, they do not pay attention where they should and make mistakes which would make Rodney yell, but Rodney is here and not with us to yell and it is all too quiet.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’m sorry I didn’t keep a better eye on him.”

“Bah, is not your responsibility. Would be better for us all if Rodney died in some spectacularly brave and stupid manner to save us all, than to die from little bee. Much easier then to pretend the little things can’t hurt us and that someone like you will be brave and save us from big things.”

“How are you?”

“I am fine. I will be fine when Rodney wakes up and I can yell at him.”

John nodded, got up, and slipped the pack of cards back into his pocket and headed toward the door. As he left, Dr. Zelenka called after him with an uncertain voice. “You won’t tell him will you, that I… that we…” Zelenka waved his hands in a way so like Rodney it made John’s chest tight.

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank god. Rodney would be unbearable if he were not quite so oblivious. I would never hear the end of it.”

“He won’t be getting enlightened by me.”

“You are a good man.”

“You should go to bed. You need to sleep if you are going to save the day.”

“I…” Radek’s eyes flickered to the bed and back. “Just a while longer.”

And with that, John nodded and left them alone.

* * *

“Dr. Weir, Dr. Weir!” Radek flagged her down in the hallway four hours before their scheduled progress meeting. “I’m so glad I found you.”

“Can it wait until the staff meeting this afternoon, Dr. Zelenka?”

Radek bounced on the balls of his feet with a huge grin on his face that Elizabeth hadn’t seen since Rodney came back from P3X-141. “We found something.”

“Tell me.”

“While we were going through the data, we discovered the reason for the shield on P3X-141. At first we wondered why the ancients put a shield on an uninhabited planet just because they could. Doesn’t makes sense, no?”

“That is a little strange, come to think of it. What did you find?”

“The flowers,” Radek said as if that made perfect sense.

“The flowers?”

“Among the unique features of the planet is the presence of a mineral found in ancient devices. Specifically in ZPMs and control crystals.”

“ZPMs,” she said, in awe. “You mean, you could make more ZPMs?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Zelenka answered tentatively. “Or rather, the crystal matrix used to capture and contain the vacuum energy. We have much work still before we can accomplish this. But also we can create control crystals for the Stargates and practically all the equipment on Atlantis, which has much more immediate practical uses.”

“That is amazing.”

“Yes.” Zelenka nodded in agreement. “But the mineral is not found in crystallized form, and it is almost impossible to separate it from the ore deposits in the soil.”

“But then, how…” Elizabeth asked, confused.

“The flowers,” Zelenka said, as if that answered everything. “The ancients were very smart. They needed to get mineral out of ore, without destroying properties. So they create a way to pull it from the earth subtly.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Zelenka, but I still don’t understand what this has to do with the flowers.”

“You know that plants that pull nutrients from the soil, yes? Well, the ancients altered the flowers. Their root structure pulls the mineral from the soil, separating it from the ore and then stores it in special nodules in a liquid form.”

“So how do we get it from there into a ZPM?” Elizabeth missed Rodney, who would have given her far more information than she ever needed instead of just assuming she understood, talking a mile a minute and taking Radek right along with him.

“The key is the seed crystal, of which we have many already here on Atlantis. The structure of the control crystals is different to the crystal matrix of ZPM, but chemical makeup is the same. If you have the liquid mineral and seed with just the tiniest piece of crystal from ZPM, the whole sample will form ZPM crystal, and likewise with control crystals.”

“Dr. Beckett to Dr. Weir,” Carson interrupted over the radio. Elizabeth held up her hand to put Dr. Zelenka on hold and touched her headset to respond.

“This is Weir.”

“You are needed in the infirmary,” Dr. Beckett said abruptly.

“Is something wrong with Rodney?”

“He’s had another seizure. You’d better come down here.”

“Alright, I’m on my way.” She ended the radio conversation and looked back at Zelenka. The smile on his face was gone, his whole mien had shifted to worry and his coloring had gone pale. “I’m sorry, Dr. Zelenka, but I’ll have to cut this short. We can talk more in the staff meeting.”

That ended, she turned to walk to the infirmary, but not two steps later Radek stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What is wrong with Rodney?”

“Dr. Beckett only needs to consult me about Dr. McKay’s condition. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” She patted his hand and attempted to brush it off, but his hand held fast. He seemed to come to some decision, because he broke eye contact with her and nodded.

“I will come with you.” And with that, he released her and began walking briskly down the hall. Elizabeth was forced to stretch her stride to catch up with him.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Dr. Zelenka.” This time she grabbed his arm, squeezing just a little tighter than she normally would to stop him. “I’m sure Dr. Beckett has everything under control.”

“Carson is a very good physician, but all the same I am coming with you unless you call security officers to detain me.”

Elizabeth looked into his eyes and what she saw there convinced her. She sighed and released him. They walked side by side down to the infirmary. Carson didn’t look surprised to see Radek with her. John had beaten them there and was leaning casually against the door to Carson’s office.

“How is he?” Elizabeth asked.

“He’s stable for now. We attempted a test of the anti-venom a few hours ago. I used only a tiny amount, but even that much sent Rodney into convulsions.”

“Did it help?”

“His blood work did show improvement, but I don’t think his body can survive the full treatment. There may already be irreversible brain damage. I cannot risk giving it to him again.”

“What if his body were stronger?” John asked. “What if he could survive the treatment? Would it work?”

“Aye, I think it would, but I’m already pumping him full of steroids and the longer we wait the weaker he gets. I’m afraid there is nothing left I can do for him.”

“The enzyme,” Radek said quietly, and John nodded. “You must give him the Wraith enzyme.”

“It might work, but this is a terrible decision to ask me to make. Rodney is my friend. You have no idea how horrible it was to watch him go through withdrawal when he came back.”

Elizabeth nodded in agreement. “I remember.”

“I know he was in a bad way going through withdrawal the last time, Carson, but don’t you think he’d prefer that to going brain dead from seizures?” John pled his case, and Radek jumped in to back him up.

“Rodney would not want this, to become a vegetable with no mind. This would be worse to him than pain.”

“Aye, alright. I’ll administer the first dose, but I don’t have enough on hand to get him through the entire treatment.”

“I’ll get more,” John promised. “I’ll get my team ready and we’ll bring back more.”

“You should take a team who has never been exposed to the enzyme, Colonel Sheppard,” Carson suggested gently. “The temptation may prove too great otherwise and I’d rather not have to put anyone else through withdrawal this week if you don’t mind.”

* * *

Rodney choked out around the tube in his throat and opened his eyes wide.

“Rodney, I’m so pleased to see you awake. Don’t try to talk; we had to open your airway with a tube. It’ll just take a tic for me to take it out.” Carson removed the tube and Rodney coughed and contorted his face with displeasure at the sensation. “There, right as rain. It may still be uncomfortable to speak for a while. Would you like some water?”

“No, actually, I feel fine. What am I doing here and why have you got me hooked up to every tube and wire in Atlantis? Are you trying to plug me into the Matrix?”

“You suffered severe anaphylaxis after an encounter with an insect very much like a bee on P3X-141. You’ve been in a coma for several days.”

“I went to P3X-141? Was I suffering from a head wound at the time? That planet has a shield that disintegrates everything we send through. Not even Colonel Sheppard would be suicidal enough to go through that gate.”

“Gee, thanks, Rodney.” John stepped out from behind Carson with a grin on his face.

“Colonel Sheppard,” Rodney acknowledged him with a scowl. “What exactly was I doing on the Planet o’ Disintegrated MALPs?”

“It was a mission, Rodney. You know, one of those things where you put on your vest and boldly go where no man has gone before. The planet was on Elizabeth’s list of known ZPMs.”

“You really do think you’re Kirk, don’t you?” Rodney snapped. “I suppose it’s your fault I got stung? No, wait, let me guess. Did Ronon try to break into the hive to get honey and bring the whole swarm down on me?”

“Nope, this one was all you.” John smirked. “You decided that the middle of a mission was the perfect time to pick some flowers for your girlfriend and pissed off a bee.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t have a girlfriend, and even if I did, I would never pick flowers. Not even Colonel Carter is worth exposure to that much pollen.”

“And here I thought we were friends.” John pouted and crossed his arms. There was just a touch of bitterness in his voice. “You don’t have to deny it, McKay. Everyone in Atlantis knows by now, the way she’s been carrying on.”

“Dr. Brown has been quite worried about you, Rodney,” Carson confirmed. “Lieutenant Cadman had to drag her away from your bedside to get some food and rest. I expect they’ll be back around this evening.”

“Dr. Brown? Katie. Oh, god.” All the color drained from Rodney’s face. “What do I do? What am I supposed to say to her? Carson, you have to keep her out of here.”

“I most certainly will not.” Carson shook his head and John just laughed. “You went to all the trouble of putting yourself in a coma just to get the lass some flowers, you can bloody well talk to her. And a piss poor job you did of it, too. You pulled them up roots and all. Lieutenant Cadman, lovely lady that she is, tidied them up and found a vase for them before we gave them to Dr. Brown.”

“Remind me to thank her after I die of humiliation. Colonel, help me get these wires off so I can get out of here before they come back.” Rodney sat bolt upright in the bed with his feet over the edge and began pulling at the tape on his hand frantically.

“Rodney! Stop that right this minute,” Carson scolded as he and John pushed Rodney back into the bed. “Your body has been under an enormous amount of strain. I don’t want you getting too excited. And you’re in for a bad time in the next few days as well. We haven’t started the treatment for the bee stings, yet.”

“But I feel fine,” Rodney whined. “I don’t need anymore treatment. And I certainly don’t need any more needles. Christ, Carson, how many puncture wounds did you give me? There are tubes everywhere.”

“Aye, you feel fine now, but the second I stop giving you the enzyme you’ll go right back into a coma if we don’t get the anti-venom into you and I don’t fancy trying to find another vein that won’t collapse.”

“Wait, enzyme. You don’t mean…” Rodney blanched. “Carson, have you finally gone off the deep end?! I knew you were little better than a voodoo witch doctor but I never thought you’d sink so low.”

“You have Colonel Sheppard to thank for that. It was his idea. I doubt I would ever have thought of it.” Carson spared the Colonel a smile. “It was either the enzyme or risk permanent brain damage and possible death. We were unable to revive you without it and the anti-venom sent you into convulsions. He and Radek seemed to think you’d prefer to be able to think when you woke up.”

“Brain damage? Seizures? What kind of bees were these?! This is all your fault!” Rodney rounded on John and poked him in the chest. “Do you have any idea how painful it is to go through withdrawal? Do you really hate me that much? What were you thinking?!”

“Calm down, McKay. I was thinking I like you better without scrambled eggs for brains, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts.”

Rodney took a moment to think, and then sniffed at Sheppard. “Well, my brain is irreplaceable.”

“Although, if we didn’t have to feed you, we could replace you with two, maybe three Marines and still have MREs left over.”

“Oh, _food_,” Rodney crooned. “Carson, what’s the chance I could get something to eat before you make my life hell again?”

* * *

Dr. Beckett, Dr. Zelenka, and Lieutenant Cadman stood with John at the back of the infirmary just outside the door to Carson’s office to give Katie and Rodney some privacy. If by privacy, one meant standing just out of hearing range and taking bets on how McKay would screw it up.

“He is terrible with women.” Lieutenant Cadman rolled her eyes as she leaned into Carson so hard the guy had to wrap his arm around her just to keep from falling. “I tried to help him, I really did, but does he listen? Noooo. He actually said he knows plenty! Ten bucks says he chokes and completely loses the ability to talk.”

“Now there’s something I’d pay to see,” John drawled. “McKay speechless.”

“He is being nice to her,” Radek said, horrified, as he watched Dr. Brown sit on the edge of Rodney’s bed. “This can only backfire and end with her in tears.”

“That’s hardly a fair bet,” John pointed out. Tears that had been hovering at the end of Katie’s lashes began to stream down her face. Rodney hugged her awkwardly and patted her perfunctorily on the back with a panicked look on his face. “She’s crying already. Last time he tried flirting with a woman, she pulled a gun on us and stole our ZPM. My guess is she slaps him and he has no idea why.”

“Now, now, lads. And _lady_,” Carson added when Cadman elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “As unlikely as it seems, Dr. Brown seems to have a great deal of affection for him. And the last thing he thought of before slipping into a coma was getting those flowers to her. Just look at them. He’s letting her cry on him.”

They all watched as Katie buried her face in Rodney’s chest, her back shuddering as she cried. Rodney stroked her hair, some of the cinnamon strands tangled in his fingers. When Rodney noticed the audience at the back of the infirmary he jerked his hand away, taking a chunk of her hair with it. She snapped her head back and squeaked. There was a dark, wet spot the size of a grapefruit on the front of Rodney’s scrubs where her face had been.

“Yes,” Radek scowled. “She is carrying on as if she is the one who is hurt. And instead of yelling, he pets her like some kind of cat.”

“Well, Rodney does miss his cat,” John said as he leaned casually against the wall with his arms held loosely across his chest. “Maybe he’s just looking for a replacement.”

“I don’t know, she’s pretty into him,” Cadman said. “She might get dressed up and let him pretend she’s his cat just to get him to touch her. He’s a bit of a prude.”

“And that is an image I’ll never be able to scrub from my mind, thank you, Lieutenant.” John twisted up his face.

“I’m just saying, sir…” Cadman shrugged. “She’s not the only one at girls’ poker night who wants to get in his pants. He’s not much to look at, but he has a very nice pa-”

“I swear to god, Lieutenant,” John said in his best Commanding Officer voice, “if you finish that sentence I’m going to have you confined to the brig for crimes against humanity.”

“Well I think they make a lovely couple.” Carson gave Cadman’s hand a little squeeze. “And I must say, it is interesting to watch Rodney attempt to mind his tongue. I haven’t been this tickled in ages.”

Just as Carson finished the word ‘tongue’, Katie looked up at Rodney with tears drying on her face and kissed him. Rodney looked straight at John with a deer in headlights look on his face. Or maybe the look was for Cadman, because she tensed up and stopped draping herself all over Carson. She started to move over to them, but Carson grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Let them have their moment, luv.”

“No.” She shook him off, looking a little agitated herself. “You don’t understand what it’s like in there. He gets so nervous just talking to her that his _feet_ sweat and his heart goes like he’s just run a marathon. He looks like he’s going to have a panic attack or something. _Do something_.”

Beckett looked down at the tablet in his hand, checking Rodney’s vitals. He looked up he said, “Perhaps you’re right.” He hustled over to the bed to put an end to the excitement for the day, Lieutenant Cadman hot on his heels. Two minutes later, the women were gone and Rodney was crumpled on the bed with his arm over his face and a sedative in his IV.

* * *

“The enzyme is ratcheting your fight or flight response.” Beckett looked down at the test results displayed on his datapad. “I’m surprised you experienced such intense anxiety, although, you did just come out of a coma this morning so your brain chemistry is bound to be off. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“She _cried_, Carson.” Rodney eyed his day-glow yellow jell-o speculatively and poked it with his spoon. “On me. She cried _on_ me.”

“Surely with your sparkling personality, this isn’t the first time you’ve made a woman cry, McKay.” John plopped into a chair and swung his feet up to rest on the edge of the bed, letting Radek drag his own chair over this time. Beckett nodded at the pair before heading back to his office.

Rodney scowled and stared longingly at the chocolate PowerBar John slipped out of his pocket and proceeded to eat like the tastiest thing he’d ever had in his mouth. “Obviously some of the more _sensitive_ members of my team have shed a few tears over perfectly valid constructive criticism in the past, but usually they go somewhere else and cease bothering me at that point.”

“Is true. The hallway outside the lab is popular place for crying,” Zelneka confirmed with a nod as he took the seat next to John. “Kavanaugh spends afternoons there letting the female staff comfort him.”

Rodney snorted. “I think he times it to coincide with Birgit’s coffee break, actually, but that’s not the point.” He looked back down at his jell-o again and spoke softly. “I’ve never had a woman cry _over_ me before.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Radek snapped, then blinked and cracked a conspiratorial smile. “You know we all cry when you go off to play soldier boy with Colonel Sheppard. There is only rending of cloth and pulling of hair and weeping in the lab until you are returned safe to grace us with your presence once again.”

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and huffed indignantly. “Thank you so much for belittling my trauma, Radek, but at least now I know why you get nothing done while I am gone.”

“I don’t know, Rodney.” John smiled evilly, licking the last of the chocolate from his lips. “I have it on good authority that there have been strange noises coming from the labs while we’re gone. Of course, the noises that Bates described to me sounded more like a party, but who are we to doubt the veracity of Dr. Zelenka’s claim that they worry?”

“Ha ha, Colonel, you slay me.” Rodney rolled his eyes.

John cracked a smug grin. “I’m pretty sure the science department would consider it a public service if I did.”

“No, no, this would never do.” Zelenka shook his head. “You must wait your turn in line. Kavanaugh would not stop bitching for weeks if we let military kill him before we all got our chances.”

“Et tu, Radek?” Hurt flashed in Rodney’s eyes for a second and was gone. “Don’t you have some work to be doing, I don’t know, somewhere else?”

“Now that you mention it, Rodney, I do.” Radek pushed his glasses up his nose as he stood. “Is a pity you will be stuck here in the infirmary while we unlock the secrets of creating ZPMs without you. Do you think I should keep my Nobel Prize in the lab or will it be safer in my room?”

“He’s kidding, right?” Rodney asked John as Zelenka walked out the door. “Tell me he’s kidding.”

John shook his head and grinned. “They are very excited down in the labs about the data you collected on the P3X-141. Dr. Weir is sending the team back out to the planet to see what else we can find and collect samples.”

“CARSON!”

“What is it, Rodney?” Beckett asked irritably as he walked back across the infirmary. “I told you before that jell-o is as solid a food as I’m prepared to give you right now.”

“You have to let me out of here. They are playing at building ZPMs in the lab! Without me! They’ll kill us all!” Rodney screeched and started ripping at the wires attached to his chest just as the heart monitor began to beep shrilly.

* * *

Elizabeth looked down at Rodney’s sleeping form, then turned back to face Carson. “How is he doing?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely certain.” Carson shook his head. “As far as I can tell, the combination of the bee venom and the Wraith enzyme is having a deleterious effect on his brain chemistry.”

Elizabeth frowned. “I thought he was awake and stable?”

“Aye, he was not three hours ago, but then he began exhibiting some troubling behavior and I was forced to sedate him. Twice, and with a higher dose than I’m comfortable giving him again.”

“Troubling behavior?” She hadn’t heard about that when she’d been called down to the infirmary, only that his condition had deteriorated. “Like Lieutenant Ford? Was he violent?”

“Yes and no, and that’s what has me puzzled. Normally I would expect to see an increase in aggression, paranoia, euphoria from the enzyme and while he did show a definite elevation in paranoia, he became increasingly agitated and anxious the longer he was awake. His blood pressure and heart rate increased at an alarming rate over a very chaste kiss from his lady friend and he had a full-fledged panic attack over a joke which easily could have escalated to a cardiac event.”

“So what’s the prognosis, Doctor?”

“I’m going to have to administer the anti-venom today, much sooner than I had anticipated, and increase the enzyme dosage to compensate.”

“How will his body react to that?” She could feel the frown lines in her forehead deepen as she spoke.

“I have no way to know, but I do know that his heart won’t last long at the rate he’s going now without it.” Concern etched Carson’s face. “I’d not like to be him when we wean him off the drug, though. The more I give him now, the harder it will be.”

“Will I be able to speak with him before you being treatment?”

“I can wake him if it’s urgent, but at this point, I’d rather start the treatment now and let him sleep through it if he can.”

“No, let him sleep. I’ll talk to him when he wakes up. You’ll let me know when he regains consciousness?” she asked. Carson nodded grimly and injected a needle into Rodney’s IV as she left.

* * *

“Colonel,” Teyla commanded, sticks pressed hard against his throat. “I have won this round. Stop struggling.”

John gasped for breath, but the sticks cut off his air supply. He flailed, but her hold on him remained firm. As he became dizzy, Teyla lowered him to the ground with his head against her thighs, sticks still pressed tight against his throat. He stopped fighting and let his body become dead weight. She eased the pressure of the sticks, but held his head in her lap.

“You have not been practicing,” Teyla said as she brushed John’s hair away from his face and peered down at him.

“Hey, I have, too.” John pouted and rubbed his jaw where Teyla had smacked him with a stick during round two. “I’m just a little out of it today.”

“You have not practiced focusing your mind. Today you fought like a child having a tantrum.” She jerked his head back down when John flinched away from the light touch near the edge of the cut bleeding over his eye.

“Ow!”

She mopped up the blood and sweat cascading down his face with the edge of her skirt. “Fighting is not only about the physical act, it requires your full concentration as well.”

“I’m _trying_,” John said petulantly.

“You are trying _not_ to think, and it is very clear that you are not succeeding,” Teyla admonished him. She leaned down and touched her forehead to his briefly. “How is Dr. McKay?”

“I don’t know. Beckett kicked everyone out of the infirmary before I came down here,” John whined. He rolled up to a sitting position and leaned back on his arms.

“And did you think that he would allow you come back if you were sufficiently injured?” Teyla asked. “Had I known this was your desire, I would not have tried to avoid harming you.”

“This is you trying not to hurt me?” She had beaten the crap out of him four times, and he’d only gotten worse as they went along. He might _need_ to go to the infirmary, what with the stabbing pain in his ribs, the gash over his eye and the bruising popping up all over his body. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“You are fortunate that you sparred with me today.” Teyla smiled wryly. “Ronon would not have shown such restraint.”

John snorted. “Ronon would have shot me.”

She patted his thigh. “Now, you must tell me why you are concerned for Dr. McKay. Ronon and I are prohibited from entering the infirmary wing while Dr. McKay receives the enzyme, but our thoughts are with him. Lieutenant Cadman tells me that he has regained consciousness?”

“Yeah, well, he _was_ awake, but he’s not anymore.” Teyla nodded and waited for him to speak again. “He was fine! He was begging for food and annoying the hell out of everyone and _fine_ until his _girlfriend_ showed up, and now…” He waved his hand with a flourish.

“Is there nothing that can be done for him?”

“Yeah, Beckett’ll fix him up. He always does.” John leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Apparently Rodney trusts him, too. Didn’t say a word to me about his little office romance, but Carson knows all the gory details.”

“Have they not been friends for many years?”

“Who knows? It’s not like he tells me anything.”

“You know that Dr. McKay holds you in high regard.” Teyla placed her hand on John’s knee for a moment to reassure him. “I have noticed some… distance between you of late.”

“We had a fight.” John hopped up from the mat, full of restless energy and began pacing the room. “But it was no big deal! We fight all the time. It’s not like we aren’t still friends. Just because we aren’t…” John struggled for the right words, “as _close_ as we used to be, doesn’t mean he’s not still my friend. My _best_ friend. I thought we were cool. I thought we had an _understanding_.”

“Although you may need some time to regain this closeness you speak of, I know that Dr. McKay values your friendship above all others.”

“That’s just it. I mean, I’m trying here. To be friends. I know we aren’t spending as much time together as when we were…” John tripped over his tongue again, “spending more time together, but we’re both busy guys. Or, I thought we were, but apparently he’s not too busy to make bootie calls in botany. The first thing he does is get a _girlfriend_ and who does he run off to tell? His buddy Carson.”

Teyla sat silently while John continued to pace.

“He didn’t even tell me. He’s been with her for months and he never said a word.”

“Perhaps he was afraid you might disapprove.” Teyla cocked her head to one side and splayed her hands in front of her.

“Well of course I disapprove! She’s all wrong for him. I mean first of all, she’s a biologist, and we all know how he feels about that. But even if he can get over that, which, fine, she’s pretty and he’s shallow like that, but even then, she _cried_, Teyla. All over him. And he just let her!”

“Does that not indicate a great depth of feeling for her on his part?”

“What? No!” John brushed his fingers back through his hair and took a deep breath as he slumped back down onto the mat. “Maybe. I don’t know. He had a panic attack. And he looked really uncomfortable.”

“I have rarely known Dr. McKay to look comfortable,” Teyla pointed out unhelpfully.

“Yeah, well, _really_ uncomfortable. And Beckett had to go save him from choking on her tongue and sedate him.”

“I am sorry, I do not understand.” Teyla looked puzzled.

“His blood pressure and his pulse and all that stuff just went all crazy when she kissed him. And that’s another thing! He _hates_ public displays of affection.”

“And you find it strange that a man’s heart beat faster while kissing a beautiful woman?” Teyla raised an eyebrow which really made John want to hit her, but that could only end in him getting his ass kicked yet again, so he let it go.

“If you could have seen him, you’d get it. He was looking right at me,” John whispered, then found his voice again, “and he was freaking out. More than usual.”

* * *

“I’ll not let either of you in, and that’s final,” Dr. Beckett said in a huff at the entrance to the infirmary, keeping John and Zelenka both outside the threshold using his body to block the way.

“But we need medical attention, don’t we, Dr. Zelenka?” John nudged him with his elbow.

“Yes, we are injured, Carson.” Zelenka shoved his burned forearm under Beckett’s nose. “Electrical burns are very bad. It could get infected. And of course, Colonel Sheppard was attacked by a roving band of petite, yet terrifying women.”

“Hey, now!” John cracked his jaw. “There was just the one, but she hit me with sticks. Big sticks. Hard sticks. Scary sticks.”

Disappointment warred with amusement on Beckett’s face. “I might have expected this of the Colonel, but I thought better of you, Radek.”

“Is my fault that equipment breaks down spectacularly and I am the only one available to fix it?”

Beckett sighed and looked at Zelenka’s arm. “It’s only a minor burn. Use a touch of antibiotic ointment and a bandage from the first aid kit in the lab and try to keep it dry.”

“What about me? I’m bleeding over here and I think I have a cracked rib.”

“Radek, give him a plaster, too, while you’re taking care of your arm, and then take him down to the kitchen and get him some ice.”

“I need an x-ray.” John smiled winningly. “And a nurse.”

“Even if you do have a broken rib, there’s naught that I can do about it. I’m afraid Radek and an analgesic tab from the first aid kit will have to do.”

“Come on, Doc, it _hurts_. And Zelenka’s cute in a frumpy scientist kind of way, but I was thinking more along the lines of blond and curvy.” John waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Perhaps you’ll think about that next time you give Teyla free reign to beat the stuffing out of you. You’re lucky the lass likes you.” And with that, Beckett slid the doors to the infirmary shut tight.

“You, too, huh?” John said as they turned to walk back down the corridor.

“It was worth a try,” Zelenka shrugged. “But I did not ask anyone beat me with sticks and stones, only got distracted by crying woman and bumped into an exposed wire.”

“It’s not like I went out of my way to get beaten up. It was a regularly scheduled beating; I’m just usually not bloody when she’s done beating the crap out of me.”

“I see.” Zelenka bit back a smile. “You find it _relaxing_ to allow a beautiful woman to beat you. In my country we must marry them first.”

* * *

 

“Carson?” Rodney asked as Beckett hovered over him.

“Yes, Rodney?”

“Am I going to die?”

“There is a slight possibility, yes. I won’t lie to you, your condition is rather precarious and I’ll not envy you the process of weaning off the enzyme again, but I think you’ll make it.”

“That’s very comforting, Carson.” The machines taking Rodney’s heart rate and blood pressure beeped more quickly than before. “I’m freaking out here and you said I couldn’t have anymore sedatives for an hour and _now_ you tell me it might not all be in my head? You couldn’t just lie to me this one time and tell me everything is going to be okay?”

“Everything is going to be okay, Rodney.” Beckett slipped his hand into Rodney’s and squeezed, patting Rodney’s shoulder with the other. “I promise. You know I’ll take good care of you. You’re going to be fine.”

Rodney relaxed into the pillows as the beeping slowed. “You’re a good friend, Carson.”

“You’re a right irritating bastard when you want to be, but you’re my best friend out here, so I suppose I’ll have to keep you around.” Carson smiled and squeezed Rodney’s hand one last time before releasing it. “At least until the Daedalus brings a replacement, but the military are terribly behind on requisitions, so who knows how long that will take.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Thank you for that ringing endorsement.”

“Any time.” Beckett planted his hands on the railing of the bed with a merry twinkle in his eyes.

“You any good with women?” Rodney looked at Beckett speculatively. “I know you’ve got Cadman, but she’s insane and practically dragged you back to her cave by your hair…”

“Yes, thank you, that’s quite enough of that.”

“Don’t be so sensitive. It’s not like she hijacked my body to stake her claim on you with a kiss straight out of one of the trashier romance novels in front of everyone I know. Oh, wait, that's right, _she did_.”

“Ah, well, that was a wee bit embarrassing for me, as well. I thought I might become the victim of a hate crime the way the Colonel was looking at me.” Beckett rocked back on his feel uneasily. “It’s not as if I enjoyed it, either, you know.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us. But back to my point, which is that I need some advice. Normally I’d ask Colonel Sheppard about women, seeing as how he is apparently the Ancient’s gift to the women of the Pegasus Galaxy, but I’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend of guns being pulled on me whenever I take his advice, so…”

“Colonel Sheppard does seem to have quite a way with the ladies. You’re sure that has nothing to do with your incredibly suave natural talent?”

“Yes, well, that is why I need _help_, if at all possible without the side of ridicule. No one ever threatened to _kill_ me before I started listening to him. Slapped me, sure, but never any _real_ violence.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s about Katie.”

“Well, of course it’s about Dr. Brown. Who else would it be about? You’re not exactly swimming in prospects.”

“She said she loves me.”

“Sounds like you’re doing just fine. What did you need me for?”

“What should I do? I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“What do you mean, you’ve never been in this situation before? You aren’t going to die, Rodney. You don’t have to worry about leaving a heartbroken woman behind.”

“No, I mean, no one has ever told me they loved me before,” Rodney said softly. “I don’t know what to do. Should I say it back? What’s the proper etiquette with these things?”

“Well, I suppose it all depends on how you feel about her, doesn’t it? What did you say to her when she said it?”

“Nothing. She kissed me and then I had a panic attack and there you were with your syringe full of Valium shooing her out the door.”

“Is that why you panicked?” Beckett laughed. “I was wondering why kissing the lass set you off like that. You looked like the Wraith were coming for your cat.”

“Yes, and thank you so much for that image, Carson. I may never sleep again. Thank god they wouldn’t let me bring him with me and he’s now living safe and sound with the hot girl next door. Reason enough to try and keep the Wraith from getting to Earth.”

“You know, I don’t know why more women aren’t falling at your feet, Rodney. Dr. Brown must be a cat lover, as I can’t imagine what else she sees in you.”

“As a matter of fact, she is, not that that has anything to do with it. She showed me a picture of her tabby the first time we met on the Daedalus.”

“Match made in heaven, then.”

“Yes, well, that’s what I thought, and then I found out she was a botanist.” Rodney shuddered.

“Och, surely you aren’t serious.” Beckett’s eyes widened, eyebrows press together and wrinkling up his forehead. “I know you’ve always looked down on us in the biological sciences, but even you wouldn’t let that keep you from a real relationship.”

“Obviously not, since I apparently put my life in mortal danger for a trite romantic gesture. I’ve always thought of myself as above those kinds of overdone, sentimental gestures, but then I’ve never been in love before, or at least, never felt an overwhelming desire to hold hands and sing love songs.” Rodney waved his hands to indicate how ridiculous he found it all. “Or buy flowers.”

“No, I can’t say as you’ve ever struck me as particularly romantic, either.” Beckett smiled fondly down at Rodney.

“That must mean something, right? Technically I don’t remember anything about her after that humiliating first date, but I’m assuming I just blocked it out, what with all the horrifying anaphylactic shock and Wraith drugs and impending death associated with it. But that must mean that I love her, doesn’t it?”

“Well…” Carson looked unsure. “I suppose so.”

“She’s smart and funny and apparently still wanted to go out with me after Cadman destroyed any hope I ever had of having dignity again. Plus, she’s kind of hot, don’t you think? For a botanist. Usually I go for blonds, but red is nice. Like the sauce on those meatloaf MREs, you know?” Rodney made a little sound of bliss and his stomach growled.

Beckett’s face scrunched up in a disapproving frown as he handed Rodney a cup of electric blue Jell-o. “I don’t know that that’s really the basis of a lasting relationship, Rodney.”

“She looks at me like I’m Colonel Sheppard, like some kind of hero. _Her_ hero.” Rodney cracked a wistful little smile at that, then glanced down at the Jell-o with a betrayed sort of look. “And anyway, it’s not like I can do better, what with Colonel Carter in a whole nother galaxy.”

“Perhaps you should wait until this is all over. As I told you before, with any luck, once the drugs are all out of your system, your memories will come back. One can only hope that then you’ll have a better idea of how you feel.” Beckett sighed heavily. “And for god’s sake, Rodney, you might consider wording it a little differently if you do decide to tell her. I suspect Lieutenant Cadman would be happy to help you with that.”

“God, just put me out of my misery if I ever get that desperate.”

* * *

“So in retrospect, hacking into the video feed from the infirmary was maybe not such a good idea.” John snapped the laptop shut on the lab table in front of them. He just stared at it for a moment until a hand on his shoulder snapped him out of it.

“I think perhaps we need alcohol,” Zelenka said as he produced a nearly full bottle of gin from somewhere in the lab. “For cleaning the wounds, of course.”

“Of course.” John nodded seriously with a smile and lowered the icepack from his forehead. “It would be remiss of you not to clean them thoroughly.”

Zelenka grimaced as he poured two coffee mugs full of gin and handed one to John. “Is best to take your medicine before I attempt to clean your cuts.”

They clinked mugs in a mute toast and downed the contents before they decided they were ready to deal with anything else. Zelenka’s hands were steady as he opened the first aid kit, pulling out antiseptic wipes, a variety of Band-Aids, tape and gauze which he laid out on the table. John felt steady on his stool, but wobbled a little when he felt the first swipe of the alcohol on the gash over his eye and flinched.

“Lean closer,” Zelenka instructed him, standing between John’s thighs and holding his face still with one hand. John leaned into his touch and stilled despite the burning sensation of the alcohol. He tilted his head ever so slightly, affording him the feel warm, gin soaked air across his lips and looked up into Zelenka’s eyes.

“She’s not even that pretty,” John said, fiddling with a thingy he found on the table that he vaguely remembered seeing Rodney play with the week before them mission to P3X-141. “You don’t have to worry. Rodney will get tired of her.”

Zelenka chuckled, watching John’s hands rub the glowing artifact with a raised eyebrow as he applied antibiotic ointment and a butterfly closure. “It is much more likely Rodney will say something spectacularly offensive and be slapped and dumped in front of the entire cafeteria.”

“I doubt she has it in her to slap anyone.” John grimaced, remembering the blow Teyla had given him earlier. Zelenka pressed the icepack against the bruise on his cheek and held it there. John continued to fondle Rodney’s gizmo until Zelenka grabbed his hand and lifted it to hold the ice. “She must have the personality of a doormat to put up with him.”

“It has been my experience that one must have the personality of a mule to deal with Rodney.” Zelenka poured another round and after handing John a mug, threw his back with a single gulp. “Although, he does profess a love of kittens, so perhaps that is the attraction.”

“He likes cats because as long as you feed them you don’t have to pay attention to them and they’ll still love you.”

“Yes, yes, they are similar creatures. Food and coffee are all it takes to secure his affections.”

John spluttered and choked on his gin. “Excuse me?”

Zelenka grinned mischievously. “Do not pretend you have never given him food just to hear that little sound he makes. Even Dr. Weir gave him the last of her coffee and drank tea until the Daedalus returned last month and she does not have to spend many hours with him in small, confined spaces such as lab or puddle jumper.”

“Well…” John shook his head and smiled fondly. “He is much more pleasant when he’s eaten recently.”

“Yes,” Zelenka agreed. “The lab is much more efficient when Rodney has been fed and watered. Much less yelling if there is also plenty of coffee.”

“So everyone benefits, really.” John picked Rodney’s toy back up and held it in his lap. “You think she cooks for him?”

* * *

“Are the two of you drunk?” Elizabeth asked, stunned. She could smell the fumes wafting off them before she had been able to see them coming around the corner.

“Who? Us?” John smiled at her with that lazy smile of his, a little sloppier than usual, a little more rumpled, and slung his arm around Zelenka’s shoulders. “Nah.”

Zelenka wobbled precariously and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Dr. Beckett refused to treat our injuries and we were forced to seek pain relief elsewhere.”

“Why would Dr. Beckett refuse to treat you?” she asked, just as the door to the infirmary slid open and the man himself stepped out.

“I was attempting to keep my infirmary from becoming a circus.” Beckett shot a disapproving look in the direction of John and Zelenka, then a warmer look and nod at her. He looked tired. “Dr. Weir.”

“How is Rodney doing this morning, Dr. Beckett?” Elizabeth asked, mostly to avoid having to deal with the drunk men currently attempting to sneak past Beckett and into the infirmary. Badly.

“Eh, eh, eh, lads.” Dr. Beckett pressed a hand into each of their chests and stepped behind them to keep them out. “He’s sweating up a storm and as grumpy as I’ve ever seen him, but that’s a damn sight better than he was last night. Nothing scares me so much as when Rodney stops running at the mouth.”

“Wait,” Elizabeth said as she furrowed her brow. “In your progress report last night, you didn’t say he’d fallen back into a coma.”

“No, no, he’s awake. I was forced to increase his dose of the enzyme twice over the night during the anti-venom treatment to keep him that way, though.” Carson sighed heavily and shook his head. “He wound up with rather a lot more than I am comfortable with, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to revive him if he slipped back under.”

“Can Rodney come out to play?” John tugged on the white sleeves of Carson’s lab coat, then turned to flash Elizabeth his get out of jail free smile. “Pleeeeease, Mom?”

“Perhaps you should let them in, Carson.” Elizabeth frowned. Zelenka had taken advantage of John’s distraction to disappear into the infirmary.

“Alright, but just for a moment and then off to bed with the two of you,” Beckett called after John, who had darted in after Zelenka as soon as Elizabeth had opened her mouth. “And a shower wouldn’t be amiss, either!”

Before Elizabeth made it to Rodney’s bed, she heard Zelenka gasp and curse in Czech. She walked the three yards just a little quicker and as she neared the bed, it became apparent just what was upsetting Dr. Zelenka.

“Hiya, Rodney,” John drawled and sat himself down on the bed right next to Rodney, who growled in protest, but scooted over to make room all the same. “Two black eyes in one night. You’re ahead of me. You piss Beckett off?”

It wasn’t very funny, but it broke the tension. Zelenka stopped cursing under his breath and making the sign to ward off evil while Elizabeth released the breath she hadn’t realize she had been holding. The fact of the matter was that Rodney _did_ have two black eyes. Literally. They looked like they had been dilated, only there wasn’t even a sliver of blue iris ringing them at all. They looked like Ford’s eye. Elizabeth shuddered.

“You look like Ronon caught you trying to make out with Teyla again,” Rodney countered in a gruff tone, sweaty and gray and trembling like a leaf.

“Nah. I’d be one bed over on a ventilator if Ronon did this.” John rubbed his jaw and shifted to sit at the head of the bed. “But let’s just say that Teyla can take care of herself.”

“You are such a slutty drunk,” Rodney snarled and rolled his eyes with an eerie slowness. John’s proximity, or his own agitation, or a combination of both made Rodney shake even more noticeably. “Speaking of which, you smell like a distillery. I suppose spent the night celebrating my misery. Did the two of you drink Radek’s _entire_ stash of gin last night?”

Dr. Zelenka flushed and looked away from the bed, but John just grinned.

“Play nice, Rodney, or I won’t let you kiss my booboos better,” John said, rather more seductively than Elizabeth had ever heard him speak. Rodney’s mouth gaped open like fish for a few seconds before snapping shut with an audible click.

“Very funny, Colonel, but I’m not your mother,” Rodney ground out through clenched teeth, sheets fisted tight in his hands. “Although, I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding a nice nurse to kiss you anywhere you say it hurts. Shall I call someone for you?”

John rolled his body toward Rodney and batted his eyelashes. His fingers languidly twirled the ties of Rodney’s hospital gown while he spoke. “What if I don’t want a nurse? What if I wanna play doctor?”

“I’m sure Carson would be happy to give you a nice shot. Lithium, perhaps? If you’re a good little boy, he might even run your blood through the dialysis machine to scrub the ethanol out.”

“Yes, I think that will be all for tonight,” Carson interrupted, pulling John up off the bed and shooed both John and Zelenka out the door. “Time for you two gentlemen to be off, and don’t come back until you’ve sobered up.”

John tossed out a cool, “See ya, Rodney,” over his shoulder, and goosed Elizabeth on his way out, Zelenka hot on his heels looking back at Rodney with a strained expression, but silent. Once Carson had returned from seeing them out and injecting Rodney’s IV with a sedative, Elizabeth cornered him for questioning.

“Why are his eyes like that?”

“I told you I had to give him more of the enzyme than I was comfortable with! I couldn’t just let him turn into a vegetable after all this,” Carson said with obvious agitation. It was probably wise of him to kick John and Zelenka out last night. He didn’t look like he could have handled them as well as Rodney.

“I’m sorry, Doctor.” Elizabeth reached out and touched his arm. “I wasn’t suggesting that you chose an inappropriate course of treatment. But you must admit, it is rather shocking to see him like this.”

“Aye, I know. I’m sorry.” Carson dropped his gaze to the floor. “I should have mentioned it to you before you came in.”

“Is this going to cause any other complications?” The black eyes were bad enough without adding anything to the mix.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to wean him off the enzyme much more rapidly than I had hoped. With this much of it running around in his system, I’m going to have to cut him off practically cold turkey as soon as possible for the effects to fully dissipate. Otherwise, it’s possible he could be stuck with his eyes like that, and most likely too aggressive to be fit for any kind of off world duties.”

“But won’t that kill him?” She seemed to remember him saying something along those lines the first time, or maybe it was about Lieutenant Ford. Either way, it sounded risky and for all his bitching and driving everyone up the wall, she didn’t want to risk Rodney. Not Rodney the Chief Science Advisor. Not Rodney the genius. Not Rodney her friend.

“He survived withdrawal once.” Carson grimaced. “It’ll take a few days to go from his current dose down to nothing safely, but I’m going to have to keep him on it for at least another night in the mean time to give his body time to recover from the treatment. I’m going to keep him sedated and let him sleep, as he got precious little last night.”

* * *

The Colonel was surprisingly graceful for a drunk man, Radek thought as he stumbled down the halls with an arm wrapped around Sheppard. Radek, however, was not. Of course, even had he been twice as graceful drunk as sober, he would still not be as graceful as Colonel Sheppard two seconds and a stiff breeze from being flat on his ass. Two doors down from his room, his boot stuttered and he tripped. Suddenly, both his arms were wrapped tight around the Colonel and leaning on him heavily with an, “oomph.”

“Hello.” Radek blinked up at Colonel Sheppard, still clinging for balance. “You have green eyes.”

“Yes,” Colonel Sheppard agreed with a nod as he swung Radek around and pressed him into the wall. “Yes I do. Yours are blue.”

“Rodney has blue eyes. They are… not as pretty as yours.” At Radek’s pronouncement, Colonel Sheppard leaned in closer. “But I have always liked blue eyes.”

“Black, you mean.” Colonel Sheppard nuzzled Radek’s neck in a way that was completely unprofessional. And quite nice. “Rodney has black eyes now. No more baby blues to distract you in the lab.”

Radek shivered. “I think perhaps that Rodney is correct.”

Colonel Sheppard brushed his lips across Radek’s neck and whispered, “Oh?” into his ear.

“You are a _very_ slutty drunk.”

“Mmmm,” Colonel Sheppard hummed into the rough patch of stubble at Radek’s throat. “Rodney is a very smart man.”

“Yes. It is infuriating how very smart he can be and yet so very, very stupid.” Radek pushed at the Colonel’s chest and attempted to squirm out of his grasp. “I do not have this problem. I am a much too smart for my own good.”

Colonel Sheppard grazed his lips along Radek’s jaw and moved in for a kiss, which Radek neatly avoided, slipping out of the Colonel’s warm arms and staggering to his door. “You are a very pretty man, Colonel Sheppard, but I do not wish to die. I could not survive hurting Rodney in this way.”

“You love him.”

“Bah.” Radek waved his hand in dismissal. “It would make no difference if I hated him. All that matters is that I fear him. Rodney is terrifying man when he puts his mind to it, and for this he would bring all his brilliance to bear on making me wish I had never been born.”

“He doesn’t own you, Radek. He doesn’t even know you’re there half the time.” Radek flinched, but John pressed on. “He’ll never know, and even if he did, he would never care.”

“That may be so for me,” Radek said as he ground his teeth and stepped through his door, “but it is not so for you. He would know and it would break him and I cannot do that to any man who is my friend.”

* * *

It was all John could do to get his clothes off between the time he stepped through his door and ten seconds later when he was flat on his back pumping his dick and moaning like a porn star under the watchful eye of Johnny Cash. Flashes of images he didn’t need assailed him like a pornographic slide show as he jerked himself hard and fast, hoping to come quick and pass out before his mind slipped from old girlfriends into unsafe territory, but too late because there was Rodney in his hospital gown, tied down to the bed, writhing and screaming John’s name low and rough as John fucked him, hard. Rodney came, begging, _please, never leave you, never lie, never, never fuck that bitch again, wrong, wrong, sorry, so, so sorry, never anyone but you, never, need you, love you, fuck me, please, John!_

* * *

John groaned and pulled the sheet up over his face when the lights in his room brightened abruptly and Elizabeth walked in like she owned the place. It didn’t help, so he let the thin sheet slide off his face, almost off him entirely, but fortunately before too much of his fuzzy chest was exposed, cold air pebbled his nipples and John was reminded he was wearing nothing but his wrist band and dog tags. He was really wishing he hadn’t kicked off his blanket in the night right about then. He was stiff everywhere and he groaned again as he rolled onto his side and realized the sheet was stuck to the hair on his belly. That really hurt.

“You’ve had ten hours to sleep it off, John.” Elizabeth side-stepped a pair of his boxers and glanced around the room at the trail of clothing from the door to the bed with a raised eyebrow. “You’re lucky I didn’t call security when you pinched my ass on the way out of the infirmary. Time to get up.”

“Go away. It’s my day off. I’m sick. I did my homework.” _I’m inappropriately hard from dreaming about fucking Katie Brown while Zelenka scolds me. Naked._ “Take your pick, but leave me alone.”

“You have a hangover, not a free pass. Do you want to tell me what all of that was about earlier? What did you think you were doing, coming to the infirmary drunk?”

“I think you’ve missed the point here, Elizabeth. We were _drunk_; we _weren’t_ thinking.” Which is to say, they had gone through all of Zelenka’s gin, and neither of them were thinking well enough to rehack the cameras from the infirmary and they’d been talking about Rodney’s nipples for about an hour and, well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Why were you drunk at 0900 in the first place?”

“The word you are looking for is ‘still’.” John scrubbed a hand across his face and glanced up at Elizabeth standing two feet away from the foot of his bed. “Why were we _still_ drunk at 0900. That little guy could drink a Russian sailor under the table.”

“What exactly were the two of you doing drinking all night?” Discovering that John is still a slutty drunk like his mom, and a mean drunk like his dad. _Fuck_. He was going to have to send Zelenka flowers or something. Did you do that for guys? Elizabeth would know.

“Mostly playing gin down in the lab.” And Zelenka had kicked his ass. John might have more hand-eye coordination drunk, but Zelenka could still _think_ after the second bottle and that was just cheating. “Or was that drinking gin? It’s all a blur after we turned off the video feed from the infirmary. Hey, what kind of flowers do you think Zelenka likes?”

“I am not even going to touch that last bit.”

“Good.” John closed his eyes. He felt like crap; he’d been beaten up, liquored up, and rejected. He really wasn’t in the mood to be court marshaled for sexual harassment today. “Are you done scolding me about this now, or would you like me to throw up on your shoes first?”

“Fine. I’ll move on to the next item on my list. I want you to promise me that you won’t sabotage Rodney’s relationship with Dr. Brown. He’s perfectly capable of doing that on his own without any of your help, but with out it he _might_ have a chance at something good.”

“I don’t like her.” And that was the understatement of the year, because what he meant was he wanted her to blow him in front of Rodney right before he shoved her out an airlock. John just might still be a little bit drunk

“Of course not. But that’s not up to you.”

“She’s all wrong for him.” Yeah, he was definitely still a little drunk, and how the fuck much gin did Zelenka have in the lab anyway? Not that John blames him; he’d drink, too, if he had to sit in the lab with Rodney all day, every day listening to him bitch and watching him bend over to pick things up. Gin was the devil.

“I understand why it bothers you. You are used to having Rodney’s full attention whenever you want it. It’s heady having that much focus from someone who can’t even be bothered to learn the names of his colleagues most of the time. Which is why the case of hero worship he’s had for you since you lit up the chair in Antarctica has always been so deeply unsettling. He’d do anything you want. I want you to leave him alone about Dr. Brown. Not only can she tolerate him, god knows how, she _loves_ him.”

“I—“ He wasn’t ever sure after that exactly what it was he was going to say before Elizabeth saved him from making an even bigger ass out of himself. But it wasn’t _I know_ or _I don’t think she does_ or even _I don’t care_. He got the feeling that _Elizabeth_ knew, though.

“Don’t,” she cut him off and crossed her arms. Her expression softened and she spoke to him like she was trying to explain to a small child that their pet had died. “You only feel like this because he’s hurt and scared and you feel guilty. I know you care about him, but can you honestly tell me that you’d ever even thought about it before you saw someone else at his bedside? Before Zelenka told you that you were responsible? Before you found him dying?”

No, he certainly couldn’t _tell_ her that. “He didn’t even tell me he had a girlfriend.” John was suddenly very, very tired. “He’s my friend, Elizabeth.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s for the best, John. You aren’t the center of his universe anymore.” Elizabeth shook her head as she walked to the door. “Rodney’s my friend, too. I’m ordering you to leave him be.”

John pulled the covers back up over his head.

* * *

Ronon could smell the Wraith enzyme. It was driving him mad and the doctor was probably right to keep him and Teyla away from the infirmary, because it would have been more than Ronon could take being that close. So Ronon did what he had done for seven years, he ran. After the second day, Sheppard ran with him until neither one of them could run any further, collapsed until they got agitated again and then they ran some more. They didn’t talk. It never occurred to Ronon to ask why Sheppard was acting like a man fighting a craving almost too strong to resist; it wasn’t his place to question.

Teyla felt it, too, and the next day even her meditation failed her. She ran with them that day, too. The fifth day it wasn’t enough for any of them, and while all Ronon wanted to do was fuck, he followed orders and fought instead. The three of them sparred until Sheppard realized they were going to have to go to the infirmary if they kept it up and left the training room rather abruptly. Teyla stayed with Ronon to fight. He grabbed her throat with one hand and held her in midair when she got distracted, until she wrapped her legs around his waist and distracted him. He slid his free hand along her sweaty thigh up under her skirt and slid a finger inside her. She bucked hard, her ass grinding against his dick until he couldn’t breathe, either. They fell to the floor ripping at each other’s clothes.

They fucked all night.

* * *

The radio in John’s ear crackled to life as he ran through the halls of Atlantis alone. “Colonel Sheppard, this is Dr. Beckett. You are needed in the infirmary.”

“On my way.”

John could hear the screaming before he reached the infirmary. Rodney had lots of screams, shrill and panicked over some imagined threat, shrieking in real terror, angry and accusatory was always a classic, but John had never heard this scream before. It was desperate and broken and _hurt_ and Rodney must have been screaming for a while now, because it was so low and rough it took a minute to even be able to understand what he was screaming, but when he did, John ran to the door. Rodney wasn’t in the main infirmary, so they must have moved him to a more private room to block the sound.

“Oh, Colonel, bless you for coming.” Beckett was more frantic than John had ever seen him, exhausted and frayed around the edges. His bloodshot eyes looked like he hadn’t slept for days and his clothes were so rumpled John guessed he hadn’t had time to change in all that time, either. John followed him to a room off the main area with a big glass window. “His blood pressure is dangerously high and he hasn’t responded to me since yesterday and even longer for anyone else. He’s been screaming like this,” _for you_, “for hours and I can’t give him any more diazepam. I was hoping that you might be able to calm him.”

“I can try,” John said grimly as he peered past the doctor at the writhing form of Rodney, bound to the bed with padded restraints, screaming for John to save him, _please_, and that was _never_ the way John wanted this, nothing like the way he wanted to hear his name on Rodney’s lips the first time.

Beckett touched John’s arm to get his attention, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry I threw you out the other day, but you know Rodney is a handful all by himself…”

“It’s okay, Doc.” John mustered up the most reassuring smile he was capable of in that moment which lasted a split second before his eye was drawn back to Rodney. “I get it. Can I go now?” He didn’t wait for the answer before he was striding through the door and over to the bed they had Rodney tied down to. It must have been alright, because Beckett didn’t stop him, didn’t follow him either and maybe it was just more than the man could take to see his best friend tied to the bed with tears streaming down his face and screaming even one more time. John didn’t blame him, but they’d need a crowbar to pry John away from Rodney now that they’d finally let him in.

“Rodney,” he said softly as he walked to the bed. Rodney continued screaming, shaking the bed violently, his face red, twisted in a rictus of pain, eyes still black as ink. “Rodney, it’s John. I’m here, Rodney. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, but I need you to calm down, okay?”

The sound of his voice seemed to calm Rodney a little, though he still cried out raggedly for John to help him, the force of his body’s struggle against the restraints lessened somewhat, so John settled into the chair by the bed and continued speaking.

“Good, Rodney, that’s good. Just try to calm down. I know it hurts, but your body can’t take it if you keep freaking out, and I’m kinda used to you so I need you to calm down. It’s gonna be okay, Rodney, I promise. Beckett is a real good doctor; he won’t let anything happen to you. He managed to keep me from turn into a bug, so this should be no problem, right? Sure, he’s not as smart as you, but then who is? He’s still plenty smart and he always comes through in the end. Once you get back on your feet you’ll have him and his voodoo to thank. I know it will be hard, but you’re just going to have to suck it up.”

Rodney continued to thrash, but his voice broke and his pleas to save him were replaced by a hoarse litany of John’s name, not as loud as a scream, but loud enough to make John break a little with each assonant repetition.

“God, Rodney, I’m sorry.” John dropped his head and covered his face with his hands. “I’m so sorry I left you there. Zelenka’s right; this is all my fault. I should have thought about it as soon as we saw all those damn flowers, _of course_ there’d be bees. No evil, life sucking aliens, no hostile natives, no Genii spies. It was too good to be true and I should have _known_ something would happen, but I just didn’t think. That was probably the first thing you thought about when we walked through the gate, and I know you didn’t want to go, and I am so, so sorry, Rodney. Maybe if I’d been there with you we could have gotten you home before things got so bad. It might have made a difference and I at least could have _helped_ you.”

“Please calm down. _Please_, Rodney. Fuck, I can’t stand seeing you like this. I wish I could make it better. I wish I could just shoot something and save you or swoop down and fly you away from all this or even kiss it and make it better like my mom did when I was a kid, but I can’t and I really hate feeling useless. It would make me feel better if you weren’t screaming. I know you don’t care if I feel better at this point, but if you could just help me out this one time. I’ll give you my share of the coffee for a month. I just really need you to be okay.”

Rodney calmed visibly the longer John spoke. He was almost still, just a jerky clench of muscles every few seconds and a light quiver in between, John’s name not much more than a never ending whisper on his lips. When John reached out and grabbed Rodney’s shaking, sweaty, tied down hand as best he could, Rodney’s hand clutched back at him. John kept talking.

“Lots of people need you to be okay, too, and not just to save them. We all care about you, and we need you to come back and play with us, soon. We miss you. Things just aren’t right around here without you.

“Zelenka was in here with you every night. You should be nicer to him. He should get a medal for every day he manages to not kill you, but instead he’s actually gone so far as to save your life. He’s a good guy and he is loyal as hell and smart enough to keep up with _you_. Plus the man can drink and who knew that a person could win at gin _every time_? Seriously, you could do worse than having a friend like that. He’s taking good care of the science crew while you’re in here, keeping them all sane and busy. He’s bound and determined to solve the mysteries of the universe before you get back to the lab, or at least the mysteries you left him, anyway.

“You’re making Carson crazy, you know. It’s not easy to watch your--” John’s voice warbled, “--best friend go through shit like this. I don’t know how he does it. I don’t know how he did it the first time. God, if I knew it would be like this, I never would have suggested it. I just didn’t want you to die and I didn’t want to see you without that genius brain of yours. It was just so _wrong_ to see you lying there not bitching or making jokes at my expense or saying something brilliant. It was like there was this Rodney shaped hole and I needed to fill it. I only wanted you to wake up and whine about how much you hate bees or tell me you hated me or _something_, anything. But I’d go back in a minute if it would save you this.

“Elizabeth is worried about you, too. She said you had a disturbing case of hero worship for me. She’s happy for you now that you have a girlfriend. She thinks it’s good for you. Hell, it probably is. It’s not like I’d know. I haven’t had a steady relationship since college. I doubt most people here are any better at it. Seems like a requirement to get here some days.

“I was so mad at you when I saw that _girl_ all over you. _Katie Brown_. Whatever. You could have at least warned me, Rodney. You could at least have not looked at me while you kissed her. That was low, even for you. I thought you understood what I wanted. I thought you wanted it, too. I thought we were just cooling it for a little while. I should have known you were acting way too fucking cool for a guy who was waiting to be let out of the doghouse.

“Idiotically, I thought you got that you were _wrong_ and that while you weren’t actively fucking _me_ at the time, you weren’t supposed to be off fucking anyone else, either. I thought you could take your punishment like a man and not a convenient time to acquire a goddamn mistress. I should have known you were getting off with one of the fawning, pretty young things with a crush on the Great Geek Hope, but it honestly never occurred to me that you have fucking _science_ groupies and when the hell did that happen? It could have been any of them! She’s goddamn generic, and you _fall in love with her_? What the hell is that?”

That was about the time that John noticed he was squeezing the hand in his so tight that Rodney was whimpering and let go. He stood and pushed the chair closer to the head of the bed, brushed his thumb across Rodney’s cheek, brushed his fingers through Rodney’s hair, brushed his lips over Rodney’s mouth. When Rodney calmed as much as he was going to, John slouched back in his seat and stared at the ceiling over Rodney’s bed.

“I was so stupid to think no one else would want you, or that you wouldn’t _notice_ at least _one_ of them, even as fucking oblivious as you are, and get tired of waiting for me to dig my head out of my ass and let it go already.

“You knew I… I thought you knew, anyway. I should have told you. I should have told you a lot of things. I should have told you to call me John. You shouldn’t have to wait your whole life for a _botanist_ to tell you she loves you. She probably sits in her lab all day telling her _plants_ she loves them.

“She’ll never know you like I do. She doesn’t know how spectacularly obnoxious and tactless you are about religion, or how much you hate children, even though they just flock to you no matter who else is around, or how truly awful you are at flying. How could she possibly understand how brave you are or how your face lights up when you get something that actually _challenges_ you or how funny you are when you’re happy? How could she possibly ever understand you? How can she really _love_ you when she doesn’t know the first thing about you? How can you love _her_ and not…” John sucked in a breath, “and not me?”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that.

* * *

Rodney woke up groggy, sore and in an unfamiliar room. And, oh yes, _tied to the bed_. Carson stood over him in his white lab coat with a relieved look on his face.

“What the hell, Carson?” Rodney shook his hands against the restraints.

“Sorry about that, Rodney,” Carson said as he hurriedly unstrapped the wrist cuffs. “You were a bit, shall we say _difficult_ the past few days while we weaned you off the enzyme.”

“And here I thought it was all a kinky bondage game. Wait, why was I on the enz- no, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Rodney rubbed his chafed wrists and winced. “You couldn’t have untied me _before_ I woke up?”

“Well, I hardly knew if you’d be lucid this time, now did I! The last time you woke I had to sedate you again.”

“No wonder it feels like all the cotton in the galaxy is currently stuffed in my mouth.”

“Have a little water, then, but sips, small sips, or I’ll take it from you and use it to water your flowers.”

“Huh?” That was right about the time that Rodney noticed the enormous bouquet of suspiciously familiar flowers. “Carson, did I or did I not make it clear what I wanted to do with _those_ with my _dying breath_?”

“Och, those aren’t the flowers you brought back with you Rodney. Colonel Sheppard went back to the planet to collect a sample for Radek. Something about root structures and crystals and I don’t know what else. The two of them dropped these by when they came to check in on you this morning after the more interesting bits had been sent down for analysis. Seems there was some rather interesting information about them in the data you brought back.”

“What the hell happened to the sample _I_ brought back?! I asked you to give it to Katie.”

“Aye, and I did. I even found a lovely vase.”

“No, what you did, Carson, is take the most ground breaking discovery since the Stargate, toss it in the trash and use the weeds growing on top in the most insipid romantic cliché ever for a woman I had awkward sex with one time!”

“How was I supposed to know that?! It’s not like you tell me these things. You asked me to give the girl flowers!”

“And it never once crossed your mind that there might be some other reason I might want an _alien plant sample_ to go to a _botanist_?”

“I’m sorry, Rodney! I should have _known_ you would never knowingly do something romantic for a woman who is _in love with you_. No, no, much better she should spend her time slaving away in her lab while you languish in a coma.”

“What do you mean, _in love with me_?”

“You should be thanking me, you ungrateful arse! Without my little mistake, Dr. Brown might never have had the courage to tell you how she felt. She was so touched by your gesture that she spent every moment of her free time crying at your bedside and when we revived you with the Wraith enzyme, she told you she loved you and you kissed her in front of everyone. I’d say it worked out rather in your favour in the end.”

“By everyone you mean you and all the other infirmary staff?”

“Aye, and Colonel Sheppard and Radek and Lieutenant Cadman, as well.”

“Was I high, no, what I am I saying, _of course_ I was high. Some quack had just pumped me full of drugs!”

“Am I going to have to sedate you again, Rodney?”

“No, no. Just let me die. This is so humiliating.”

“There’s no need to be so melodramatic. We all like the lady in question and everyone is quite happy for the two of you. Nothing to be embarrassed about at all.”

“Everyone?” Rodney squeaked. _Everyone_ was happy for him? He thought for sure that Sheppard would at least have the common decency to _pretend_ to be jealous or angry or _something_. That was just polite. He thought they’d had an understanding. One moment of weakness born out of loneliness and desperation while waiting _indefinitely_ to be forgiven was perfectly understandable, and Sheppard should _forgive_ him for it, not throw away everything over it like it never meant anything in the first place. Apparently Sheppard really was as cool and unaffected and completely fucking untouchable as he seemed, no matter how much Rodney had wanted that all to be a façade.

“Aye, everyone. You don’t think that there’s a one of us who doesn’t want to see you happy, do you, if only to have you in a more agreeable mood from time to time?”

“I’m touched.” And arrogant, infuriating flyboys aside, he was. Rodney had never had friends who _cared_ about his happiness before. He’d never been loved, either.

“I’d suggest you and I keep this little conversation to ourselves, though. I’m not sure Dr. Brown would be happy to hear that you were toying with her emotions, or that it was all a mistake.”

“I’m good with secrets,” Rodney said softly, and then amended that with, “as long as no one tries to torture them out of me.”

Carson smiled. “I’m sure you two will be very happy if you can manage not to shove your foot in your mouth every time you open it.”

Rodney wasn’t so sure, but he remembered Katie’s mouth opening for his, remembered how sweet and funny and _competent_ she was, remembered how she wanted him when… no one else did, and he hoped.

* * *

Underneath the pitcher of flowers on Rodney’s bedside table sat a card written in Radek’s familiar tight script.

_“You could have saved me the trouble of sending the Colonel out again had you simply used complete sentences and not assumed that everyone would understand the significance of such amazing specimens. It was much too late to retrieve the important parts by the time we had accessed the pertinent data, and I did not want to ruin whatever dubious benefits your grand romantic gesture gained you. True, flowers are a small thing in comparison to knowing that the Great Rodney McKay finds one to be competent and places more trust in you than in one’s entire department with the greatest discovery since arriving in the City of the Ancients, but she seemed to find it an acceptable substitution and who am I to argue? I am sure that your Flower Girl will prove herself worthy of your original intent with the samples I have provided her. _

–Radek”

There was no note from the Colonel.

* * *

**The End.**

* * *

**Prompt:** John looking for the perfect gift for Rodney while trading on some planet. Substitute _trading on some planet_ with going for the damned flowers, anyway, and/or collecting the enzyme while saving the galaxy from creepy life-sucking aliens... yeah, I'm aware it isn't exactly a perfect fit. There was porn required.

**Teaser for Sequel I Probably Won't Write At This Point:** "Oh, hell no! If you are going to trash your relationship, you are doing it with _me_."


End file.
